Catharsis
by merlinlost
Summary: "Yes, Gwen was the only reason Merlin had met Arthur, and the only reason he had to say goodbye." AU.


**My plot bunnies were kind of depressed. I think it was the carrots. **

**Warning: Today, I don't believe in happy endings.**

Birds sung sweetly in the trees around the cemetery.

People dressed in black ignored the music, and huddled around a large, grand stone that dominated a stretch of lush, freshly packed grass.

A woman with dark skin and curled hair stood in the middle of the group, directly before the stone. Her eyes were rimmed in red and warm water. The sun blazed overhead, causing their shadows to betray their true figures, including his own.

* * *

Merlin had first met Arthur four years ago, back in uni.

They hadn't been dorm roommates.

They weren't even interested in the same fields.

No, the only reason Merlin met Arthur was because of Gwen.

And he would never forget it.

Yes, Gwen was the only reason Merlin had met Arthur, and the only reason he had to say goodbye.

* * *

Merlin met Arthur on a rainy day. Usually, those days were meant to be depressing, but it wasn't depressing at all. Far from it…Merlin remembered that day to be one of the happiest he ever had.

Gwen had pulled Merlin out of his dorm room, which he shared with a fairly nice bloke named Percival.

"I want you to meet someone," she had said, voice almost breaking with happiness.

Merlin grumbled, and lost his umbrella twice along the way, but eventually he and Gwen stumbled, wet and dripping, into a pub. It was frequented by uni students and ordinary people alike, and currently filled with warmth and chatter.

"Is this the same someone you've been talking about all week? The same _someone _who helped you find that Chemistry class you took up this semester?" Merlin asked, shaking stray droplets from his cloak and turning to meet Gwen's eyes.

She answered the question with a small squeal, when that _someone _came into view.

Merlin would never forget that view.

* * *

Friendship was a funny thing. It was glorious, and unlimited, but when Merlin met Arthur...he learned friendship had an ugly side.

Merlin had been friends with Gwen since childhood. She had supported him when he came out to his parents, and had collaborated with him when choosing uni. Their bond ran deep, and strong, and sure.

So who was Merlin, to take an interest in someone Gwen was so obviously smitten with? Merlin had never, in all the years he had known Gwen, seen the girl so happy and excited as when she spoke about Arthur. Her deep brown eyes would crinkle in that special way she had, and her hands moved carelessly about as she described something Arthur had said, something he had done that day…

Merlin was friends with Gwen, and so he could not become friends with Arthur. And so, when friendship's virtue came to light, it became one-sided, and marred.

Often, people said friendship knew no bounds. Merlin disagreed. He had found the boundaries, and knew better than to cross them.

* * *

Still, becoming friends with Arthur was inevitable. The boy spent more and more time with Gwen, who didn't want to rush things and invited Merlin along to movies and dinners.

The term "third wheel" rolled away and abandoned Merlin as he melted easily into their fold and companionship.

It was the best, and worst day when Merlin had spent it with Gwen and Arthur.

* * *

The worst thing was not knowing Merlin had no right, no right at all in trying his hand at his best friend's crush, Arthur.

No, the worst thing was knowing he_ had_ a right, every right.

It had been an innocently cloudless day, the second to last year at uni.

The second year Merlin had known Arthur. The first day he would really _know _Arthur Pendragon.

The millionth day spent alone with Arthur, at a pub, watching the telly hooked up above the bar, and slouching over twin glasses of beer.

Merlin refrained from drinking too much, because he was with _Arthur, _and becoming drunk while being with Arthur was like going on a kamikaze mission. Who knows what he might say, or do.

Arthur, of course, had no such restraints. He had argued with his father that afternoon, on whether or not he should continue his own path or follow the one laid out for him by Uther.

Merlin didn't know the specifics of the fight, only that Uther had won.

And Arthur got plastered.

Merlin tore his eyes from the tv screen just in time to find Arthur hobbling up from his seat at the bar and planting his face to some random bloke's lips.

Merlin gagged on his drink, and shot up from his seat. Obviously, Arthur was drunk.

_But not drunk enough to not be able to distinguish a man from a woman._

And that was when Merlin knew what Arthur had been arguing with his father about.

But Uther had won.

And so, when Merlin dragged Arthur off his rather eager victim, and slung a supportive arm under his best friend's crush, he said nothing.

And when Merlin squeezed Arthur Pendragon into the passenger seat of his car, and drove them back to uni, and deposited his best friend's crush, who was really _gay,_ back to the front steps of his room, he did nothing.

So that night, in both their lives, remained nothing.

* * *

Yes, friendship truly was strange. Was it something that symbolized two people's relationship with one another? Or did it exist merely for one person to please the other?

Was it mutual, or was it just the name for another form of servitude?

Friendship, Merlin decided, meant that he should tell Gwen about Arthur's fondness for men, because his best friend had a right to know.

She had a right to be happy.

And he had a right to be happy.

But no, don't think about that, he musn't, because Uther had won, so Uther would be happy.

The rest of them would just live out their lives under the rule of those who were older, wiser, and more blind than them.

And Gwen, with her smiles and her brighter attitude since she had met her crush, might not be happy in the end, if Merlin told her the truth.

Their friendship might end, all three bonds between himself, and Gwen, and Arthur.

So what was the right decision? What was friendship?

Was it something that made people happy? Or something that let people _know?_

Knowledge, Merlin knew from first hand experience, was not always more pleasurable to have.

Two beasts warred for dominance within him, beasts named _heart _and _mind. _

He needed his heart to live, he needed his mind to survive.

And so, Arthur Pendragon remained straight for the rest of the year.

* * *

The marriage invitation had been simple, yet elegant, sweet and utterly devastating. It was to take place on a Tuesday, in the summer.

Merlin knew that Uther's hold upon Arthur was waning, but Gwen's was growing ever stronger. By now, it did not matter what the father had said. The son had made his decision.

And so Merlin made his.

On Tuesday, September 18th, Merlin was found at home, with several empty bottles of beer by his couch and the telly blaring news nobody wanted to hear.

* * *

Two years passed in silence.

Merlin found people he wanted to have in his life, and maintained the connections of those he had already discovered, but said nothing to the two whose bonds he cherished the most.

Sometimes, he caught headlines in the news.

_Uther Pendragon, renowned founder of Camelot Corporations, deceased. Heir claims inheritance. _

But other than short snippets from the press, which relayed little that could be true, Merlin knew nothing about the lives of Arthur and Gwen Pendragon.

Not knowing. That was the hardest part of leaving them alone.

They had called, of course, but Merlin knew how to sink into London crowds, and get lost in society, alongside everyone else who had no business interfering with love.

Were they worried about him? Did they think about him often?

_They. _

And Merlin knew whatever _they _felt towards him did not matter, could not, because whatever they felt towards _each other_ mattered all too much. It did not leave room for him.

The two years went by, and then he saw one more headline. The last one there would ever be.

_Arthur Pendragon, recently positioned 'President' of Camelot Corporations, meets tragic end during bridge collapse. 13 other lives claimed. Survivors include Gwen Pendragon, widowed._

* * *

Merlin broke free from the group huddled around the stone, and stepped into the center to join Gwen.

And why shouldn't he?

They wept together, both mourning the loss of something they never had.


End file.
